Peet’s Coffee has confirmed that 100 per cent of its purchases are responsibly sourced per Enveritas standards.
Enveritas, an independent third-party global non-profit, tracks social, economic and agricultural impact across multiple crops and industries. The verification process relies upon comprehensive farm audits conducted by regional specialists trained in coffee production.
These specialists help identify a variety of risks including deforestation, child labour and other damaging social and environmental conditions.
“This responsible sourcing achievement is the result of a multi-year data collection process to verify the conditions and practices of the more than 59,000, mostly small coffee farms in 24 regions around the world who supply coffee beans for Peet’s Coffee,” says Doug Welsh, Vice President and Roastmaster.
Enveritas holds Peet’s responsible for supporting its coffee growing communities through community impact investments. Enveritas’s data-based system measures conditions at the point of origin to identify farmers and communities most in need of agronomic and other assistance, and tracks progress of impact projects to ensure community support is effective.
Working collaboratively, Peet’s and Enveritas designed a custom coffee specific verification program that uses, among other techniques, artificial intelligence (AI) and geospatial technology to gather independent, data-rich reports of conditions on coffee farms.
These conditions are verified against 30 sustainability standards set by Enveritas, which has performed more than 20,000 annual audits across Peet’s coffee supply chain.
“Peet’s Coffee came to us several years ago with the challenge to customise a data collection system to track actual practices in the regions where they source coffee beans. The company wanted to know with certainty how Peet’s coffee is grown and then help improve conditions within each community through targeted projects,” says David Browning, CEO of Enveritas.
“The verification audits we perform are rigorous, and the data details actual practices in place for accuracy and year-over-year analysis. It is a model that will help individual producers and the industry evolve to better address climate change and other associated, complex challenges.”
For more information about Peet’s verification process and Sourcing with Impact programs, visit www.peets.com/impact.